Les Miserables

Les Miserables

Director: Tom Hooper

Song: I Dreamed a Dream

Composer: Claude-Michel Schonberg

Song Writer: Alain Boublil

Performer: Anne Hathaway

{http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzNVmZfNoa8}

Les Miserables is my favorite soundtrack and musical of all time.  It is based on a novel by Victor Hugo and is set in the French Revolution time period.  Although the story has many different elements, such as a revolution, a man seeking redemption from his sin, another man seeking justice and a love triangle, the scene where Fantine has sold her body to support her “sick” daughter has to be one of the best scenes of the story.  You feel her sadness in the song, not the lyrics themselves, but the music stirs emotions that all have felt.  Whether it be a heart ache that is ripping our heart to shreds, or a loss of a loved one, or maybe a piece of your dignity. 

Let us go deeper into Fantine’s story.  Fantine had a daughter out of wed-lock after falling in love with a boy who leaves her after a summer fling.  She works in a factory, so that she can pay for some inn-keepers to take care of her daughter.  They tell her they need more money for “medicine” and Fantine works night and day to earn some.  Then she is the target of some jealous women at the factory she works in and is fired from her job.  She must still give the inn-keeper money, so she had sold her hair, her teeth, and in the end she sells her body.  This is the scene where the sound track starts and Fantine sings of her loss and sadness. 

You feel her despair, even without the lyrics.  It starts so soft and beautiful as she reminisces about her summer love then gets more intense as she tells the story about his departure and the shame she had to face alone.  The rest of the film is as heart renching and relatable as this scene.  Scenes about a man who is trying to redeem his sins and live a better life, but can not run from his past or a the scene where a  girl dies fulfilling the wish of the man she loves, as she delivers a letter from him to another woman.  The soundtrack is beautiful and is one that is able to be recognized from just the beginning score.